Which Credit card to get rid of?

jde-tv

I have quite a few credit cards and am worried I have too many. I think I should try to close at least one, however I have read many conflicting opinions on-line about keeping older ones open/keeping the ones with the most allowance could look good or bad.

so I have;

Natwest student credit card. The limit is £500 and I've had it since September 2011. I haven't used it for three years.

Tesco - £3000 limit, I have used this as my main account since June 2013, spending at least £600 a month. I have recently stopped though due to the club card points not being worth anything.

Halifax Clarity - £1000 limit, had since April 2014. I just use this for spending abroad and a few things per month.

Sainsburys - Had since April 2015, £3000 limit, Of which I have used £2500 which is interest free until December.

Asda - Opened February 2016, £2000 limit. Purely to get the 1% at Asda and the 0.5% everywhere else, I will try and use this as my main account.

Ideally I would get rid of the Tesco and the Natwest ones, but these are my oldest. The Sainsburys one will be gone in December, but I would like to transfer £2000 to a new 0% card at this time (this will be the next time I apply for a card)

In the last 2 months I have also successfully applies for two current accounts and a loan. So I want to do whatever I can to improve my chances of getting a new credit card in December.

So any thoughts? Thanks!

Richard019

I wouldn't have thought closing those 2 would be a problem. It would leave you with:

Halifax £1k - basically unused
Sainsbury's £3k - new card almost, about 2k on it and paying minimum payments until December
Asda £2k - decent amount of spending (assuming the £600/mth transfers from Tesco card)

So you'll only have £6k total available on the cards, and you'll only have 1/3 of that used and not getting repaid (in full) each month.

If you've got £600 to be spending and paying off each month your annual earnings must either be many multiples of that £6k figure or you've managed to get your rent included in it, and you'll not show as using all your credit and being desperate for more. You shouldn't have a problem getting a new card for a £2k balance transfer, especially when they can see that the £2k you want to transfer is the only sitting balance you have. If you close them it would also mean that you can apply for new customer offers at those banks in December if they have the best deals then (I think they're both 6 months or less after leaving that you can qualify again).

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Reasons to keep open/close accounts that don't apply in your situation:

To keep open - if you had 3 cards that were full to the limit, and 2 empty cards you would be best to keep the 2 empty cards open as well. Otherwise when you applied in December it may appear that your money management was bad, because all your available credit was used up they wouldn't find it as easy to distinguish between someone who was desperate for credit because they spend too much, or someone like yourself that's managing balances and closing unnecessary cards. The 2 empty cards would just serve as a "look, I'm not struggling, I just like the card you're offering so can I have one please" message. - In your case this doesn't apply because the Halifax and Asda cards are effectively empty cards.

To close - If (figures purely for illustration) you were earning £18k, and had £35k available on credit cards on top of a mortgage, but you were only using £6k of the limits on those cards you would probably want to close a few accounts. In this case it's not that they think you're managing your money badly, it's a "what if" situation. They can get a bit wary of letting you have too many multiples of your salary available at any one time. Potentially they could give you a new card and then the next day you go out and max all your cards and then they're just not going to be getting paid back so they avoid the risk. - This doesn't apply to you because, I don't know what the multiple is and it probably varies, but I was recently at well over twice my earnings (with x2.5 mortgage as well) and still getting cards, so with your spending you're nowhere near that yet.

note3

Thanks Richard, that info is helpful and covers what I was about to post on

jde-tv

Thanks a lot for the reply! Really helpful!